This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book

Playlists

You can create a new playlist right on your Fire. Tap Playlists > Create new playlist. Type in your playlist’s name in the “Create new playlist” pop-up and tap Save (Figure 4.3). Next add some music to your playlist by scrolling through your songs and tapping the plus button next to the songs you want to add (Figure 4.4).

Figure 4.3 Name your new playlist something that makes sense given what songs you plan on adding to it.

This isn’t the most efficient method of looking for particular songs. Tap the Search box at the top of the Add Songs to Playlist screen and type the name of a song, artist, or album. The results will be displayed, and you can tap the plus sign to add songs to your playlist.

Tip

As you scroll down a particularly long list in your Music library, a sort of slider appears on the right of the screen (Figure 4.5). You can use this slider to quickly scroll through the list. Put your finger on the slider and slide down/up, and you’ll see the list zips by.

Figure 4.5 This little tab appears while you’re scrolling. Press your finger against it, and you’ll scroll through a long list in no time.

Tap the Done button, and your Fire displays an “Updating playlist” message as it creates your playlist (Figure 4.6). Once the playlist is created, it is displayed so you can either play the songs or edit it by tapping the Edit button to add/remove songs.

Now that you have a new playlist, you can do some cool things to it. In the playlist list, long tap a playlist, and the contextual menu appears with some options (Figure 4.7):

Figure 4.7 The playlist’s contextual menu allows you to download it to your device, among other things.

Download playlist: If you know you won’t have Wi-Fi access but you really want to listen to some of your sweet playlists, you can download the playlist, and all the songs that it contains, to your device. This option appears only on playlists in the Cloud library.

Add more songs to playlist: I just covered how to create a playlist. If you have an existing playlist and want to add more songs to it, tap this option, and you’ll be taken to the Add Songs screen (shown in Figure 4.4).

Rename playlist: Not happy with the name of your playlist? You can change it by tapping this option, typing a new name, and then saving it.

Delete playlist from Cloud Drive or device: Want to great rid of the playlist? Tap this and the playlist is gone, but the music on the playlist is still in your Music library.

Tip

When you play songs from a playlist, the playlist appears on the home screen’s Carousel. Long tap the playlist’s icon to add it to your Favorites. This trick works for the special playlists as well.

Special Playlists

You can delete or modify all the playlists you create on your Fire, but there are some playlists that are automatically generated. In your Cloud library you’ll see two playlists that allow you to download only the songs they contain; you can’t rename them or delete them. Latest Purchases and Latest Uploads list exactly what you think they do, but here’s the clever part: You don’t add songs to them manually but rather by your actions.

When you upload songs to your Amazon Cloud Player (more on this in the “Adding Music to Your Fire” section), they are added to the Latest Uploads list automatically. When you purchase songs/albums from the Amazon MP3 store (either on the device or via Amazon.com) and add them to your Cloud Drive, they appear on the Latest Purchases playlist.

The Device library contains one special playlist, Latest Additions, which lists all the songs/albums recently added to the device.